Very well executed

Too much of everything

Better Late Then Never

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Mansfield Park (1999) was written and directed by Patricia Rozema. It's based on Jane Austen's novel. Frances O'Connor stars as Fanny Price, the protagonist of the novel. Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are considered Jane Austen's two best works. Mansfield Park is down a rung on the ladder along with Persuasion and Emma. However, Jane Austen may well be the world's greatest English-language novelist, so even her less dazzling novels are read, and re-read, to this day.The film version rises and falls on the character of Fanny Price, the poor relation who is sent to rich relatives who live at Mansfield Park. The plot revolves around Fanny, and Frances O'Connor brings her alive. (At age 32, O'Connor was chronologically too old for the part, but she has a very vital, youthful quality, and she looks perfect in the role.) Not only does O'Connor do great work, but the supporting cast is excellent, and the production values are high.However, a controversy arises because director Rozema has chosen to subtly shift the characters and the sense of the novel to add incidents from Austen's own life, and to include a moral discussion about slavery. (The slave trade in England was outlawed in 1808, but slavery itself was not outlawed until 1833.)As cited in Wikipedia, "The result is a film that retains the core character evolution and series of events of Jane Austen's novel, but in other ways, some critics claim, stresses its themes and ideas differently. The plot changes the moral message of Austen's novel, and makes the story a critique of slavery rather than a conservative critique of the "modern." In the novel Fanny's passivity and moral stance are seen as virtues but these aspects of her character are missing from the film." I refer you to the complete article in Wikipedia, but this paragraph is the core of it.The question for me becomes, "Can scriptwriter Rozema improve on Jane Austen? Should director Rozema allow her to do this?" That's not an easy question, and I don't have an easy answer.This film was made for the large screen. We saw it on the small screen, and it worked pretty well. Whether it is or isn't what Jane Austen had in mine, it's a very good movie, and worth seeking out.

It's like Sense and Sensibility, if Sense and Sensibility was less lighthearted and perhaps more poorly constructed. Don't get me wrong, I liked this movie, I just had a couple of problems with it. There are several points in the film where the main character, Fanny Price, is reading letters that she wrote to her sister and they are only there to explain exactly what is happening to the audience and it rubbed me the wrong way. Thankfully it didn't happen too much though. I also didn't like the end of the film. It wrapped up way too quickly. I was honestly shocked when I realized the movie was ending. It felt like they tried to include too much content into too short of a run time, and it was really noticeable to me. I would have definitely preferred a longer movie, as long as they used that time to develop what was happening more. This movie isn't without pros though. The acting and writing are both great and the cinematography was pretty decent as well. I imagine fans of Jane Austen as well as average film goers will enjoy it. 6.6/10

Remember that Jane Austen book you read where the protagonist wrote nonsensical stories and ran around her uncle's house shrieking like a whackjob? No? Maybe I can remind you of a bit more.The protagonist Fanny is an older woman who falls in love with her lipstick-wearing, teenage-boyish cousin Edmund. But Edmund falls in love with another cougar, Mary, who lives nearby. Mary the Cougar's brother Henry goes after Fanny. Fanny waffles about marrying Henry. Eventually she agrees. Then she changes her mind.Edmund's father, Sir Thomas, is a rapist who likes to torture his slaves for kicks. Sir Thomas also loves to letch on any woman within ten feet of him.Edmund also has a pretty sister named Maria - oh, wait, no. This Maria is a bit of a butterface. Julia is the pretty one, this time. Momma Bertram is addicted to drugs. Mrs. Norris appears in a scene or two, but isn't particularly evil, just kind of bitchy.Still not remembering? That's because this film is unrecognizable compared to the novel. The dialogue from the book is redistributed to the characters at random. Whole personalities are reworked. The entire point of the novel - staying true to your morals - is completely missed. Instead, this is a novel about angsty people who are trying to survive in a world controlled by The Patriarchy, in the form of the Evil Overlord Sir Thomas.Frankly, the whole film's ridiculous. It's what you get when a Jane Austen novel is done by a director like Patricia Rozema (who was, before this, best known for a small Canadian film about a lesbian threesome in an art gallery).The 2007 BBC version isn't great, but it's 100x better than this mess. Skip it.

This was one of my favourite Austen books, and least favourite period adaptations. The references to the period are all contradicted, and Fanny's character is quite changed and not for the better. I thought there was too much focus on the slavery angle which isn't a central theme in the book. Fanny is supposed to be a very timid, quiet girl, and her uncle kindly. Neither of these comes across in the film. Edward's straightforward romance with Fanny from the outset in this film is a mockery of the book which weaves a far more interesting and complicated story. The setting and scenery also seemed poorly thought out - Mansfield Park is described as an elegant, rich dwelling - and yet the walls are crumbling and the set looks cheap. I don't mind an adaptation that changes the story if it does it well, but all in all, I couldn't finish this movie as it was a offense to the book and a once-fantastic story.